Green Party Critical of Pesticide Use After Thousands of P.E.I. Fish Killed

CHARLOTTETOWN (CP) – As environmental officials in Prince Edward Island continued collecting thousands of dead fish from two rivers thought to be contaminated with pesticides, the provincial government said there was little it could do to prevent what happened.

Environment Minister George Webster said despite regulations that call for creation of grassy berms and 10-metre, pesticide-free buffer zones along P.E.I.’s rivers, an unusually heavy rainfall Friday probably overwhelmed those barriers, flushing high levels of farm chemicals into the Tryon and Dunk rivers over the weekend.

“As a result, (the rain) did move silt off fields and gravel off roads, and you could tell it was a super heavy rainfall event that happened on Friday and into Friday evening,” Webster said in an interview.

“Our systems are designed to take a heavy rainfall event, but over a longer period of time.”

Critics said the massive fish kill, particularly in the Dunk River in western P.E.I., shows the province’s regulations aren’t tough enough to properly control farmers who are overly reliant on chemical pesticides and fertilizers.

Both rivers have been closed to angling and the harvest of shellfish.

Sharon Labchuk, leader of the P.E.I. Green party, said pesticides should be banned on the Island because it is foolish to think they can be contained on farmers’ fields.

“The idea that you can somehow create a buffer zone between a sprayed field and a stream is absurd,” she said.

“Those chemicals are airborne as well, and once it starts raining, those chemicals are pushed into the stream as well. If your field is above a stream, your chemicals and your topsoil are going to end up in that stream.”

It’s not the first time a P.E.I. river has been shocked by toxic runoff from a farm field.

The legislation that requires riverside berms and buffer zones was introduced after a series of major fish kills between 2002 and 2004.

A similar pesticide poisoning in 2003 killed about 4,500 trout in the Wilmont River. A farmer was later fined $16,300. Efforts to rebuild the river’s trout population are still underway.

Todd Dupuis, a spokesman for the Atlantic Salmon Federation in P.E.I., said the incidents show tighter regulations are needed to prevent further environmental damage.

Gerald MacDougall, the Environment Department’s manager of fish and wildlife, said thousands of fish have probably died in the Dunk River alone, including speckled and rainbow trout and young Atlantic Salmon.

“The disappointing part is that we’ve lost such a large number of large spawning trout,” he said Tuesday.

“It looks like both fish kills happened about the same time, and it was most likely a toxic event of some sort, and likely a pesticide. But the investigation will bear that out.”

Prince Edward Island, often referred to as “The Garden of the Gulf,” is renowned for its distinct red soil and its large yield of potatoes.

The province is one of the most intensely farmed areas in Canada, its postcard patchwork of fields a familiar image around the world.

Ian McIssac, executive director of the P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture said he wanted to see the outcome of the investigation before commenting on the latest fish kill.

“We want to be protective of what we have and certainly we are concerned as a farm organization about anything that happens in the streams and waterways on the Island,” he said.

“There’s been a lot of investment by government, producers and watershed groups…and if agriculture is part of the problem then obviously more has to be done.”

Labchuk, whose party succeeded in making the environment a key issue during last spring’s provincial election campaign, said as long as pesticides are used near streams, the result will be more dead fish and ill people.

Spuds remain the No. 1 crop on the Island, but to grow them in the quantities needed for industrial french-fry production, farmers have had to rely on nitrate-laced fertilizers.

A recent study by the Geological Survey of Canada showed groundwater nitrate concentrations in most regions of the province were significantly higher than normal, with one in five wells tested in one watershed area showing levels above Canadian guidelines.

Pundits say public anxiety over nitrates contributed to the defeat of Pat Binns’ Liberal government in May. A provincial task force has since been asked to look into the issue.

“The only time we seem to take note of the very serious problems with these chemicals cause is when we have dead fish floating belly-up,” Labchuk said. “We need to stop putting these chemicals into the environment.”

In March, the P.E.I. Health Department released a report that showed the overall incidence rates of cancer for both men and women have been increasing in P.E.I. while remaining stable in Canada.

The report looked at trends from 1980 to 2006.

The greatest differences were evident in lung and colorectal cancers in women, prostate cancer in men, and melanoma in both.

Last year, Dr. Ron Matsusaki, an emergency room physician in P.E.I. told The Canadian Press that farm communities in his region are like laboratories for rare and aggressive cancers that are occurring much too often.

Matsusaki, who was a candidate for the Green party in the last federal election, said he believes the intensive use of agricultural chemicals is a principle cause of rising cancer rates.

– By Kevin Bissett in Fredericton